The Western world is being brought to its knees by mad bank regulators.

The Western world is the result of risk-taking in all shapes and forms… “God make us daring!”, ends one of the psalms sung in its churches. 

And so when regulators, with their capital requirements, decided to give the banks additional incentives to embrace what was perceived as “not-risky” and further avoid the “risky”, like small business and entrepreneurs, only so that banks would not fail, they stuck a dagger in the very soul of the Western world. 

And besides, they used a lousy dagger that could not stop banks from failing, because it is precisely when banks embrace too much something that is perceived as absolutely not risky, when they fail, en masse. 

And Mario Draghi is one of those Western-world-slayers regulators who do not yet even understand he is very much responsible for “L’economia castrata”. Therefore, Sebastian Mallaby’s heading “This will not be enough, Mr. Draghi”, August 8, would have been more precise stating “Nothing Mr. Draghi does, will be enough” 

Survival of Europe has to begin by rescuing the possibilities of its risk-takers to take risks, and that begins by firing the nannies in the Basel Committee and in the Financial Stability Board, and renaming the latter immediately the Financial Functionability Board.